Available content in social networks is moving quickly from network-generated content to user-generated content, particularly with the increased popularity and usage of social networking sites, such as Facebook, MySpace, Twitter, etc. that may employ microblogging, tweeting, texting, instant messaging (IM) to very quickly disseminate content. Social networks provide a valuable service in allowing users to generate content very quickly, and there are definite advantages in the so-called democratization of media. Users can generate content for free in order to garner the attention of a large number of social media users, and there is value in accessing the collective knowledge or intelligence of many users, as evidenced by sites such as Wikipedia.
The relative ease and speed with which content can be generated and communicated within social networks do present downsides, however. Hackers, or even normal users, can de-frame or bully other users in a social network environment very easily and quickly with messages whose content may include misinformation or untruthful, derogatory or defamatory statements that may even have elements of libel or slander. While in a normal free-speech arena, such misinformation or harmful messages may be corrected or counteracted by the dissemination of truth or corrective communications, in modern social networks the rate of transmission and re-transmission of detrimental messages can grow at such a fast rate as to render counter-point or corrective communications ineffective, resulting in potentially irrevocable damage to the target of the misinformation. Further, the unrestrained dissemination of messages in a social network can have adverse effects on network traffic. When sensational messages are posted and quickly re-posted to large numbers of members or users of a social network, a condition referred to as the “circular mill” phenomenon can arise. The term “circular mill” in the field of sociology refers to a situation in which ants that lose the pheromone track of other ants simply continue to follow one another, forming a continuously rotating circle or spiral and eventually dying from exhaustion. With the ability of social network users to easily and in real-time copy and re-transmit popular messages from one user to a multitude of other users, as is the case of re-tweeting on Twitter, for example, the potential reach of such re-postings within the social group or network can be exponential, presenting a significant hazard to bandwidth and other traffic resources of the network.
It can be understood that as social networks and social networking sites have become very “real-time” in their ability to deliver messages, especially when accessed through the use of mobile devices such as smart phones, for example, there is a danger that network traffic resources will be drained, and that real people or entities will be harmed by the over-usage of social networks in a negative way, as evidenced by recent occurrences of defamatory comments on micro-blogging social networking sites. If unchecked, such social networking behaviour has the potential to have serious detrimental effects on traffic or on users of social networking sites.